


Far Side of Failure

by silkmoth



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Angst and Humor, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkmoth/pseuds/silkmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was nothing else that could sober someone up more quickly than looking in the stunned eyes of a person who was just kissed and jumped and –Gods- groped by the wrong person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far Side of Failure

**Far Side of Failure**

He was so screwed, it wasn’t even funny.

Best thing would be to stay forever in this cave. No one would know where to look for him and the dragon wasn’t here anymore to get on his nerves with telling him things that sounded like there would be a chance for something while there really wasn’t, at all.

He would just sit here for the days it would take for him to die of thirst and hunger, contemplating the one mistake he shouldn’t have made, and all the mistakes that lead to the big one.

Like drinking one cup of wine too many. Or watching the Crown Prince stumble over his words with a beautiful maid, a maid who was in love with someone else. Or listen to the Crown Prince gushing over said maid. Or sitting down on the bed beside the Crown Prince. Or telling the Crown Prince what he thought about the maid and her oh not so nice secret. Or…

Merlin banged his head on the stone wall behind him. Thankfully, there was still the blur of too much wine in his blood, though he thought he had sobered up dramatically in the last hour. There was nothing else that could sober someone up more quickly than looking in the stunned eyes of a person who was just kissed and jumped and –Gods- groped by the wrong person. Like a male manservant, for example.

Merlin banged his head backwards again, harder this time. Molesting Arthur hadn’t even been his biggest mistake. Instead of trying to laugh it off _somehow_ , playing the drunken fool –oh, how clearly he could see himself doing exactly _that_ , and Arthur falling for it because Arthur always fell for his little tricks - no, he had looked into these stunned eyes, saying _nothing_ , knowing that everything he felt for this man had been written all over his face.

The only bright thing he had done tonight had been running away as quickly as possible before Arthur came out of his own drunken daze. This had spared him at least a punch in the face, not to mention the words that would have come after that punch. Not that this really mattered, because he could _hear_ those words in his mind, so abundantly clear as if Arthur was standing right next to him, shouting them.

Merlin sat down on the rough ground beneath him, preparing himself to stay there forever. He even shed a few drunken tears while falling asleep, tears over the thought that someday, years in the future, his bones would be found, and people would marvel about who that lonely person had been.

***

Forever proved to be too long.

Especially when one woke up, cold thanks to sleeping on a stone floor, with the worst hang-over in history.

Merlin didn’t care anymore about Arthur finding or punching him; the only thing he cared about was a certain flask in Gaius’ laboratory.

With a groan, he heaved himself up to stumble through the darkness towards the stairs. He didn’t try to light a torch because he couldn’t think of the words he needed for the spell, and hell, he doubted he could do any magic at all in his state right now anyway.

Finally arriving at the entrance to the inner courtyard, Merlin shrank back from the noise of the crowd and the _brightness_ of the day. He pressed a hand over his eyes and leaned against the wall, swearing silently. How in Heaven’s name could he ever cross the market without…

“Merlin!”

At the sudden sound of his name, Merlin jumped and spun around, removing his hand to see who called out to him, only to get another hand in his face, quite hurtfully. Before he could even blink or do something, Gwen slapped him a second time and ran away, sobbing loudly.

Merlin and about half of the crowd stared after her, mouths hanging open. What the hell…

“Merlin!”

This time, Merlin jumped behind one of the guards before turning around. The guard tried to shake him off immediately, but Merlin just clung to the chain mail harder. If this was Uther with a battle axe in his hand, he wanted someone else between them.

“Get off me!”

“Merlin, what are you doing?”

Gaius. Relieved, Merlin let the guard go with a slight pat on his back, ignored the murderous glance he got, and literally _jumped_ the physician.

“Merlin, what…?”

“I need your help. My head is… look, can I stay here in the hall and you bring me that blue bottle? I don’t think I can reach…”

“Merlin…”

“No, really, Gaius, I can’t…”

“Merlin! Arthur had been down to see me an hour ago and therefore, the ‘blue bottle’ as you call it, is empty! What were you two up to last night? Arthur had reeked of wine and your breath is…”

Merlin didn’t listen anymore. The only thing he could think about was that Arthur - _the arse!_ \- had drunk Merlin’s reason to stay alive.

***

Lying on his bed where a disgusted Gaius had thrown him, head buried in the pillow, Merlin swore to himself that he would never drink another drop of wine in his whole life. Not only that the wine made him do foolish things; no, obviously it also made him imagine things like Gwen slapping him - _that couldn’t have really happened, could it?_ \- and it made him feel so sick that death seemed like a real good solution right now.

When he heard the door to his room bang open and a nauseating chipper voice asking him how he felt, murder seemed to be a good choice, too.

“Go away, asshole.”

“Aww. You feel bad today?”

“Arthur, if you make me turn around, I swear to the Gods, I will kill you.”

“What did you say? It’s hard to understand you when you speak into your… whoops.”

Merlin had lashed out into the general direction of the voice with the result that he almost fell out of his bed while Arthur easily had avoided the blow.

“Now now. No need to get all excited about me being here. I just wanted to…”

“Get out or I will hex you!”

Exactly one second too late, Merlin’s brain caught up with his tongue. But even afterwards, Merlin couldn’t bring himself to care. He was feeling too awful. Anyway, if Arthur still spoke with him after what happened last night, the prince probably wouldn’t mind him being a warlock. As if he had heard his thoughts, Arthur started to laugh, annoyingly loud.

“If I’d had any idea how many truths it would unearth, I would have made you drunken far earlier.”

Merlin groaned.

“Now that sounded spontaneous, Arthur. Tell me, how long have you thought about this sentence?”

“Quite a while,” Arthur admitted grinning, while sitting down beside Merlin.

Merlin’s mind tried in vain to tell him something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t concentrate on what his inner voice was saying. Something was off, yes, he got that, _thank you very much_ , but whatever it was, it wasn’t off enough to make it through the pounding of his head.

“Gods, you stink.”

Merlin swatted at Arthur’s face and tried to shove him back, but that was like shoving at a wall.

"I stink? Then get out! And get off me!"

“Get off you? Merlin, you do know that you’re still drunk?”

“I don’t care. All I wanted to do is die here in peace and I can’t because you are here. And the reason why I wanted to die in the first place was because _someone_ drank the whole bottle of medicine. Thank you for that. Now go away.”

Merlin felt Arthur shifting around a bit and then…

“I told you to go away not to lie down! Arthur… ah, whatever. Just be silent, alright?”

While he heard and felt Arthur’s quiet huffs of laughter and got drowsy over listening to Arthur’s heartbeat, Merlin promised himself that he would find out what’s wrong the moment he would wake up again.

The End

  
“So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because that's where you will find success. On the far side of failure.”

 _Thomas Watson, Sr._


End file.
